Tets wrote:I think Lovecraft always did a good job mixing facts with fiction. So im not in general worried about stories mixing facts with fiction. I dont see a problem in general, using old scotish myths, folklore, historic facts, and fantasy.

i think in general it would be a solid start.. people dont believe in the old gods and monsters, and now they are coming back. It starts with a world we know and ends in something completly different.

The story itself is fine for the start of a new IP. Considering BT backstory from the first 3 games, it's stretching suspension of disbelief that the world has evolved so dramatically in a short period of time.

How much did we know about the state of the world in Bard's Tale 1/2/3? (I'm leaving out the other dimensions here, as I don't think most people are supposed to have had any idea about the existence of things like Tarmitia.)

Here's what I think I know.

* Spellcasting is relatively common (there is a business catering to spellcasters)
* People use metal weapons and armor in combat, suggesting a medieval level of technology.
* Some of the most powerful figures in the world are apparently archmages.
* More than one god is worshipped, (see temple variety), though its' unclear if this is a polytheistic religion or multiple competing religions or otherwise.
* People live in towns of significant size (though we don't know if they also live in other situations.)
* Certain mages have been known to use a variety of evil nonhuman forces to achieve their aims.
* Horses are kept (stables).
* This is a temperate area of the world (winter is a relevant concept)
* Apparently some areas are politically united (there is a King of the cities of the plains)
* Some people bury their dead underground (Crypts, Tombs)
* Gambling is permitted in some places
* There is some kind of formalization of adventurers, since they have both a Guild and a Board which assesses their competence.

Do we know anything else?

My overall point is this is a very blank slate. It's hard for me to understand how what's being put forth here conflicts with it, other than perhaps a shift from a very spartan level of context to a much larger amount of context.

ZiN wrote:
It's not more hilarious than say Lucas being the authority on Star Wars, or JVC on M&M. Not being in the industry for 30 years is exactly the reason i want him on board. And that's why Fargo should want him on-board too, or at least contact him for an interview, stretch goal, etc. That's my old-school™ opinion.

Lucas kept overseeing entire Expanded Universe universe, so he's certainly more of an expert than a dude who made two games 30 years ago and quit.

And quiting the industry is exactly the reason he shouldn't be on board, game design has evolved over the years, believe it or not. You seem to be drastically overestimating the amount of thought and concept work that went into the games in the early days.

Priest4hire wrote:
Say, did you know that the man who began Christian monasticism, Anthony the Great, lived to be 105? Life expectancy was lower, but a lot of that was child mortality. Lots of people lived into their 60s, 70s and 80s. And just to be clear, you're saying that by 300AD or so, everyone thought that the New Testament was made up? Cause the story isn't that the past has been distorted or mythologized but that the people literally don't believe those events even happened. And it's not some random event on the other side of the world. Tarjan destroyed the very city the new Skara Brae is built upon and named after. Those events might be embellished but to forget them is Darwin award level stupidity.

Of course they have writing and there would be documents. Possibly even writings by one of the former main characters who lived through those events. But also remember that in the middle ages Mnemonics was highly developed. One of the jobs of a bard is keeping history alive through their craft, and the aforementioned mnemonics would allow them to memorize hours and even days worth of material. This game is called The Bard's Tale, but I guess they're really damn crap at their job if the can't even keep major, local events relevant. Oh, and exactly why would a peasant be uninterested in hearing the story of how the mad god wiped out the old Skara Brae. That sounds kind of awesome, and peasant loved stories. Why wouldn't they?

A lot of historical figures lived long. If you're a king, you'll generally have a decent living standard even in the middle ages. Same goes for people in the monastaries, who rarely had to starve, you know. But the general population living expectancy was in the 30-40s.

And no, I'm not saying everyone thought New Testament is false. I'm saying it still got distorted and ridden with inconsistencies, even with tremendous effort to preserve it untouched. What chances do the campfire stories have?

The paesants would certainly be interested in a cool campfire stories, what he wouldn't be interested in, is preserving them for 150 years without distortion.

I don't see this as any less plausible, than, say, people in ancient Greece not believing the myths were real events.

You think Cranford's been living under a rock or something? You're pretty mistaken then, to be honest he (and i'm fairly sure Burger as well) has more skill/talent at programming and game design than anyone at Inxile currently. After all he has his own development company and stated that he would be quite interested in the making of a new BT game in a 2013 interview. I really don't understand the Cranford hate some people have here...

Cranford has been building websites. It's kind of a different field. If I saw him starting up a kickstarter to make a game, I'd be interested, but that he hasn't made a move to get into games again says it's not really a priority for him.

I don't really believe that it's necessary to invoke the original names in order to make a good product. I don't think Fargo or Heineman or Stackpole or so forth are necessary to make a decent party-based dungeon crawler. You do need a team willing to see what's great about the party-based formula, and play to those strengths, or at least iterate to a new successful formula. And for that you need some experience with game design, some creative minds, and a lot of hard work.

I haven't read the new fiction yet, but if I'm understanding one of these arguments right, people are upset because it's not REALISTIC for a society to become ignorant about historical events in just a few generations.

That means it's my cue to remind everyone that REALISM doesn't always make for the best games and stories.

Once upon a time, there was a brief era when monsters roamed the earth and insane, evil gods took human form. Once, twice, thrice their schemes threatened the country, but in each case, a group of heroes rose to the challenge and put the evils to rest.

After that, everyone learned their lesson. They made sure to keep the wards up and all the protective spells in place, and remember every day the mistakes they'd made in the past, and above all to never ever let things get out of hand. Everybody got along and no more monsters appeared. And into this tranquil scene a new group of heroes arose! ... Or they would have if there had been any call for them whatsoever. Actually after that everybody just hung around the tavern at night and did their jobs during the day and lived happy, trouble-free lives from then on.

He kind of was, yeah. Programming isn't riding a bike, the skills from 30 years ago mean exactly fuck all. If you're not constantly learning for 30 years, and spend that time studying the scriptures, you're out of the game.

ZiN wrote: to be honest he (and i'm fairly sure Burger as well) has more skill/talent at programming and game design than anyone at Inxile currently.

How exactly would you even judge that if he hasn't made a game in 30 years? You have got to be trolling. And Becky's Battle Chess remake is currently sitting at 68% score in steam reviews, it still in early access after 2 years, with people demanding refunds due to constant crashing. How about that?

ZiN wrote:
After all he has his own development company

Websites. He makes websites. And that doesn't automagically mean he's the one writing any of the code, mind you. Most people at that age transfer to managerial positions, like, you know, Fargo did.

ZiN wrote:
I really don't understand the Cranford hate some people have here...

Nobody hates him. We just don't share your religious fetish about him. Many "legendary designers" came back during early Kickstarter craze, and guess what - most of them ended up failing. Turns out they've been out of game industry for a reason. I'm all for featuring oldschool writers, oldschool composers, oldschool designers who actually hone their skills as the years ago by, but the idea to have 50 year old Bible professor to do the programming is straight from Monty Python Flying Circus.

IHaveHugeNick wrote:150 years is not tight at all. We're not talking about modern world where 150 years is two old ladies living back to back.

Ehhh... but we're also dealing in a fantasy world with elves and dwarves, who could conceivably consider 150 years to be "my college years".

ZiN wrote:I really don't understand the Cranford hate some people have here...

It's pretty understandable, really. Just do a little bit of research on the behind-the-scenes events around Bard's Tale 2 and 3. It doesn't reflect well on Cranford.

Zombra wrote:I haven't read the new fiction yet, but if I'm understanding one of these arguments right, people are upset because it's not REALISTIC for a people to become ignorant about historical events in just a few generations.

Good point. Few generations? Hell... people can become numb to things after a few years...

IHaveHugeNick wrote:And Becky's Battle Chess remake is currently sitting at 68% score in steam reviews, it still in early access after 2 years, with people demanding refunds due to constant crashing. How about that?

The more you try to convince me that Cranford sucks, the more i'd like to hear Cranford's opinion on the matter, from his own mouth. And Fargo's opinion too. After all we're short on facts and just speculating things mostly. Would be nice to clean this matter up after all. Until then this debate is moot and needs to be put on hold.

Zombra wrote:I haven't read the new fiction yet, but if I'm understanding one of these arguments right, people are upset because it's not REALISTIC for a society to become ignorant about historical events in just a few generations.

Way to misinterpret my thoughts and miss the point completely. Well i'm not going to argue about this anymore.

If this is supposed to be a community of old-school hardcore fans of Bard's Tale and other similar games, then i'm pretty disappointed (with a few honorable exceptions). Old-school is truly dead, and it's no surprise. RIP.

(Or there might be a chance that this is the "new-old-school" and i'm just too ancient/antedeluvian to grasp it. Maybe...)

Zombra wrote:I haven't read the new fiction yet, but if I'm understanding one of these arguments right, people are upset because it's not REALISTIC for a society to become ignorant about historical events in just a few generations.

Way to misinterpret my thoughts and miss the point completely. Well i'm not going to argue about this anymore.

Mmm, okay, but I just looked back and I think I got it. You talk a lot about how in real life, people cling to their oral traditions; therefore a fictional story in which that doesn't happen is bad. If I missed the point, maybe that's my fault, but what I described is a major theme in your previous posts, and it was that theme I was addressing with my response.

If this is supposed to be a community of old-school hardcore fans of Bard's Tale and other similar games, then i'm pretty disappointed (with a few honorable exceptions). Old-school is truly dead, and it's no surprise. RIP.

For the record, I'm an RPG old timer just like you, but have always said that I didn't get that far into Bard's Tale. You'll see me in other threads seeking education on the series. But again - that doesn't change what you were complaining about upthread: the impossibility of a society forgetting its history.

And it's pretty silly to decry an entire gaming culture because it doesn't adhere perfectly to the backstory of a specific series. Old school gaming isn't all about dutiful interpretation of the relationship between Targoth and Lagoth.

ZiN wrote:The more you try to convince me that Cranford sucks, the more i'd like to hear Cranford's opinion on the matter, from his own mouth. And Fargo's opinion too. After all we're short on facts and just speculating things mostly. Would be nice to clean this matter up after all. Until then this debate is moot and needs to be put on hold.

Did you read the interview you linked earlier?!?!?

It gives his side. He held the source code to get a better deal because he feels he was tricked.

Regarding his involvement in future Bards Tales, he said he would have made it into a MMORPG like WoW if he stuck with it and it was under his control. A MMORPG.

He never played BT3 or Dragon Wars. He never even played his own games, BT and BTII.

Based on that interview, it sounds like he doesn't even play games, he just likes to write code. A video game designed by non-gamers would surely turn out great! Right?

Edit: Oh I forgot to mention, he also said games should be simple and really easy to attract housewives to play them.

ZiN wrote:The more you try to convince me that Cranford sucks, the more i'd like to hear Cranford's opinion on the matter, from his own mouth. And Fargo's opinion too. After all we're short on facts and just speculating things mostly. Would be nice to clean this matter up after all. Until then this debate is moot and needs to be put on hold.

We're pretty clear on facts. The man hasn't been in the industry for almost 30 years (fact), he held BT discs hostage (fact), his own personal website (http://www.onesteadfast.com/Contact) doesn't even mention any programming or game design credentials or interest (fact).

You're the one throwing out baseless speculations about him being godlike programmer and game designer of unmatched talents.

Why are we even talking about Cranford here? We're just rehashing the same conversation we had 5 months ago. (And it's not like a new member brought it up. We were all there for that conversation.) Unless there's fresh information on the guy, there's nothing to be said.

Personally, I'm excited at the prospect of bagging Monte Cook. Now there's a guy with old school cred - who has, incidentally, continued to earn his living in game design for the past 30 years.

Zombra wrote:Why are we even talking about Cranford here? We're just rehashing the same conversation we had 5 months ago. (And it's not like a new member brought it up. We were all there for that conversation.) Unless there's fresh information on the guy, there's nothing to be said.

I mean, I get the obsession about having the oldschool people back, I used to be the same way.

I just learned my lesson after Kickstarters from many of my favorite developers ended up a failure. Turns out if you haven't been able to get a new game out for 20 years, its usually for a good reason, one completely unrelated from 'big bad publishers are holding me back". Now, I've mostly been following adventure game Kickstarters, so my view is based towards that. Most of adventure games that came out of Kickstarter only highlighted two things - the major problems with the genre itself, and the fact that these people haven't been practicing their craft for a while.

I doubt I'll ever back, or hell, even buy, KS game led by " legendary creative talents" again. If its an estabilished studio or an oldschool producer like Fargo who actually knows how to run a company and get shit done - sure.

BT4 will end up just like Wasteland 2: A series of missed opportunities to bring some of the old characters back combined with a juvenile Swiss cheese plot. Nathan Long completely botched the wl1 lore and failed to have even half the depth of wl1's story/plot.

Bard's Tale was not originally put in Skara Brea because it was a real place in Scotland!!!! Michael Cranfod chose it because it was the name of the town in Brigadoon!! Inexile is using the same look and even logo/font for Bard's Tale that they used on the steaming pile of shit they called bard's tale in 2003. If the Scottish vibe failed in 2003, why do it again???